


aiga

by sepiacigarettes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Minor Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Polynesian Hunk (Voltron), Samoan Culture, Samoan Hunk (Voltron), Season 7 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22344211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepiacigarettes/pseuds/sepiacigarettes
Summary: “You look thin,” his grandma tells him as she brushes imaginary dust off his churchie faitaga.“Have you been eating?”“Yeah, Gramma, of course,” Hunk says, tacking on the end: “Always.”She cups his cheek. “Good. You are Samoan. Don’t forget where you come from. It's impossible for you to forget thefa'a Samoa.”Hunk leaves home and fights to retain his culture
Relationships: Hunk & Hunk's Family (Voltron), Hunk & Hunk's Parents (Voltron), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 105





	aiga

**Author's Note:**

> a belated birthday fic for my sunshine boy Hunk 💛; as always, so many thank yous to [christie](https://twitter.com/appetixing) for beta-ing this and culture-checking it with me

— H —

Hunk grew up in the States on a solid diet of corned-beef sandwiches, weeknight _lotu’s,_ and a profound hatred for White Sunday speeches, which was mostly thanks to how _embarrassing_ they were.

Hunk didn’t like those and neither did his anxiety, okay?

But it was _fa’a Samoa_ —the Samoan way, so it just made _sense_ that he knew how to throw a rugby ball before he could walk, and that speaking to his elders was completely different to the way he spoke to others (because you know, speaking in general wasn’t difficult enough already), and that just because Auntie Rita’s get-together was scheduled for midday, that didn’t mean they would get to hers any earlier than three o'clock.

Island time just didn’t work like that.

The best part of it all was definitely the food.

His childhood was spent with his _aiga_ at his Grandma Siulia’s house, watching her cook with his aunties while the uncles sat outside and let the women work. He used to sneak kumara chips when his mom wasn’t looking, and Auntie Maia was the one who taught him how to make his favourite dish, _sapasui._ When his cousin Tula got married, Hunk helped his grandmother and aunties with the _umu,_ and when Sione and Abel were circumcised, Hunk was the one put in charge of heaping food onto their plates (also rule number one that he learnt: coconut cream belongs on _everything)._

When Hunk visited Uncle Simon in New Zealand, they gave Hunk’s family a traditional welcome at their marae, which was super cool and still gives Hunk goosebumps whenever he thinks about it. Then there was his cousin Hemi's thirteenth birthday where they pinned money to his shirt and gave him his first hair-cut. Auntie Nina's family are Hawai'ian and Filipino, so they always flit between the three languages too quickly as they cook for Hunk to keep up.

And there are other aunties and uncles from different islands with different languages and cultures, because everyone knows each other _somehow._ Hunk still remembers when their _matai_ Grandpa Tomasi died, they sent him off with a _haka_ that had something from all their different islands.

It can get pretty crazy trying to meet up and understand each other, but one thing’s for sure: even though Hunk’s _aiga_ is a melting pot of Pasifika, food _always_ brings them together.

So Hunk isn’t _really_ surprised that food is the reason he meets Lance.

The Cuban slouches in his seat at lunch time on their first day at the Galaxy Garrison and whines about the miles of desert sand compared to his home. Hunk understands; he’s a beach baby too, it’s in his blood to crave the ocean.

“I miss my mom’s cooking,” Hunk says, pushing his mashed potatoes around his plate and wishing it was cassava.

“Same,” Lance laments.

They talk for the rest of lunch break about their favourite dishes from home and sit together from then on.

The days get eaten up by flight simulations and physics classes and homesickness, and when he returns home for the holidays, Grandma Siulia takes him aside.

Her brow creases as she looks deep into his eyes and Hunk’s heart rate skyrockets because he already knows what she’s going to say. Six months away from his family had already shown itself in the way the first thing his youngest cousin Leilani said to him was, “You sound like a _palagi.”_

“You look thin,” his grandma tells him as she brushes imaginary dust off his church _ie faitaga._ “Have you been eating?”

“Yeah, Gramma, of course,” Hunk says, tacking on the end: “Always.”

She cups his cheek. “Good. You are Samoan. Don’t forget where you come from. It's impossible for you to forget the _fa'a Samoa_.”

— H —

Hunk doesn’t _actively_ try to.

But the Garrison is schedules and classes and curfews, and Hunk never fit the Samoan stereotype the kids gave him at first anyway; he’s big, but not menacing. He plays rugby, sure (no choice about that when _all_ his cousins and uncles play) but he prefers to sit inside at a computer screen. As far as a large chunk of Hunk’s extended _aiga_ are concerned, he belongs in a trade school doing an electrician apprenticeship like his cousins, or becoming a mechanic like his dad. He shouldn’t be at the Garrison crunching numbers for fun and studying to become an engineer.

So it isn’t active.

But his family are the only ones who talk to him in Samoan; his aunties are the ones who make him Samoan food. Hunk manages to talk enough to the Garrison chefs that they let him in sometimes during their _mise en place_ to help, but it isn’t the same.

There’s nothing of home or his culture at the Garrison.

Which is okay, too, you know, Hunk isn’t _completely_ against it.

He likes the other _palagi_ kids; likes joking with them in class and studying together in the afternoons; he likes going to the movies with them on the weekend and eating burgers afterwards without needing to tell his parents. Back home, it’s impossible to go anywhere without his mom wanting constant updates on where he is, or without his aunties or cousins wanting to tag along, so the change is nice.

No, forgetting isn’t _active._

But it happens a little bit anyway.

Hunk returns to his family for the Christmas season, and no one says anything this time, but it doesn’t matter.

 _It's impossible for you to forget the_ fa'a Samoa, his grandma said, but the damage is done.

This time he _feels_ like a _palagi_ in his own home.

— H —

When Hunk’s cousin Makare (who isn’t related to him by blood but she’s still family anyway) graduates, they cover her in _ula lole_ and celebrate at their local community centre with a proper _hangi._

Hunk is picking apart his plate of taro after his older cousins have finished dancing to ‘Te Hiva’ when his mom sits beside him.

“You look pale, sweetheart,” she says, holding out another loaded up plate for him. “Do they not feed you at that school of yours?”

Hunk takes the offering and laughs as she pokes his cheek. “They do, Mom.”

She fusses with his hair, adjusts his collar. “You know, Gramma Siulia just wants the best for you. She can’t help it.”

That morning, Hunk’s grandma had squinted at him and told him he was beginning to forget the _fa’a Samoa_ she raised him with. Hunk keeps chewing so he doesn’t have to answer straight away. “I know.”

“And I can’t say she was wrong about some things, either.”

Hunk sighs. The spinach was marinated in coconut cream but it’s bitter on his tongue. “I _know.”_

His mom’s hand smooths up his back, the same way she used to when he was a child and bed-bound with fever. “Then you should also know,” she says gently, “that you don’t have to let go of us to fit in with your _palagi_ friends. Not totally.”

 _That_ makes Hunk want to cry.

In front of them, Hone is being heckled by their uncles to play the _pate,_ and Makare is sitting amongst the elders, and there’s Sione introducing his new girlfriend Bianca to Uncle Andy. It’s like it’s so easy for his cousins to flit back and forth between their worlds.

Hunk puts the plate down. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“No, no.” His mom shakes her head. “There’s nothing to apologise for, sweetheart. We’re just worried, you know? We’re your _aiga,_ it’s what we do.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Hunk assures her, but the words sound empty as they leave his mouth.

“I know. And I understand, too. Sometimes Samoan is too many _fa’alavelave._ Too much _fa’a Samoa._ It’s okay for your father and I because we are older, and Gramma Siulia is Samoan.” She pauses, then cups his cheek. “You’re my son, either way. You know your father and I are proud of you. All of us are.”

Hunk still remembers getting his acceptance letter to the Garrison, along with the scholarship. None of his family had done anything like it. There’s Brad, Hunk’s older cousin who got scouted for his basketball prowess and moved to the other side of the country for it, and Lika, who relocated to England to be a model, but none of his cousins left their seaside home to become space explorers.

Only Hunk.

“Just don’t forget who _you_ are,” his mom says, hand over his chest, over the _thump thump_ of his pulse. Hunk doesn’t have heartburn but the ache in his sternum is definitely going to stick around for a long time after this chat, he just knows it. “Don’t forget your family.”

— H —

Hunk starts his next year at the Galaxy Garrison throwing up in the flight simulator (thanks, Lance), and then the next day, he blasts into space and lands on a planet with more ocean than land and meets _real-life aliens_.

Then he finds the Yellow Lion and bonds with her (which, wow, a giant sentient robot lion, _awesome)_ , and eats food goo for the first time. It kind of tastes like vitamins and health, but the texture of it reminds Hunk of sago pudding, so he clings to that (and the fact that they never ended up going to the commissary for a late night snack and Keith’s shack had no food in it).

And the Castle is really cool; they don’t have classes anymore but they have sparring and holograms and star charts that show an entirely different universe than anyone back on Earth had ever dreamed of. They have mornings of food goo and drills, and sometimes at night, they get to see meteor showers.

The first time one happens, Hunk watches the passing stars, thinking of voyagers and astronauts and pondering his connection to them. Because his forefathers were seafarers, were the first to sail and make a home for themselves among the different islands, and now here Hunk is, years ahead of his projected timeline of getting into space.

It’s in his blood to be here, aboard a ship journeying to different planets, a star sailor discovering new cultures.

It feels _right._

But it hurts too, being even further away from home.

“I miss the beach,” Lance tells Hunk one night when they should both be asleep, except instead Hunk is digging around in the kitchen for ingredients that might be suitable for making something more edible than food goo.

He’s stressed, okay? Baking helps him relax. And hopefully the finished product will resemble bread.

“You always miss the beach, man,” Hunk says, sniffing a box of powder that is _potentially_ the Altean equivalent for flour.

God, his grandma would be so judgemental of this stuff, for sure. Hopefully it works.

“Don’t you?” Lance retorts.

“Yeah,” Hunk nods. “Course I do.”

Because he misses the times when he and his older cousins would go to the beach after school. They would leave their school shoes and shirts on the sand and swim for an hour or two before sprinting home on their bikes so their parents wouldn’t get mad at them for being late to dinner.

“But we’re in _space,_ man! Think of everyone back at the Garrison staying up late to pass their test scores and we’re out here.”

“True,” Lance sighs, scratching at the counter like he can graffiti some hieroglyphs onto it for some civilisation to find years from now. “I just miss my family.”

Hunk nods, thinking of Leilani crying when he had to say goodbye to her after the holidays, and his newest baby cousin Moana reaching out with her chubby little hands for his hair. Even Tui had pouted when he left.

“Me too,” Hunk says. “‘S hard, being away all the time normally.”

“Yeah.” Lance chews the inside of his cheek. “Guess it’s harder for you because they live so far away. You don’t get to see them as often.”

The block of substance Hunk finds in the cooler sort of smells like butter, so he adds it to the bowl and sets about whipping it into submission. Auntie Nina’s husband Tony used to love banana muffins, and she would sit Hunk on her lap and get him to hold the whisk before covering his hand with her own.

“Yeah,” Hunk agrees. “And it’s hard because I go home and my cousins and grandma call me a _palagi_ because my Samoan goes to shit every time I leave since I don’t have anyone to use it with.”

Lance looks at Hunk’s handiwork quizzically and says nothing. Hunk is taking that as a good sign and not as an indicator that he should restart the whole thing with new ingredients.

“I mean,” Hunk says, holding the wooden spoon to the side. He isn’t _ashamed_ of where he’s from, or who he is. But his mom’s words have been chasing each other around in his head. “My mom told me I shouldn’t forget who I am, and like, she’s right, the Garrison is nice and I really like it, it’s just…”

“Not home,” Lance finishes. “I get that.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m too white for my family, too Cuban for the kids at the Garrison,” Lance says. “I _get_ it.”

“Yeah,” Hunk says, because how can he remember himself when the majority of him is his family? Being away from them is like surviving in a drought after years of rain. “So this is even worse, sometimes.”

Lance stays quiet, and so the next few minutes pass with Hunk rolling out the dough on the bench, pushing the air out of it the way his Auntie Ophie taught him. Auntie Ophie, only one year older than him, is the youngest of his aunties and the funniest. When she had Moana, Hunk helped the rest of his family take care of them both.

That’s how it worked with anyone born in his family: it took a village to raise them.

“Do you think we’ll ever go home again?” Lance says quietly, contemplating his glass of water.

Hunk pauses from where he’s wrapping the bowl in cling film. “Yeah, buddy. Course we will.”

Of course they will.

— H —

And they do, eventually.

They do after endless amounts of floating in space, fighting droids, forming Voltron, defeating the Galra and meeting alien royals. They do after countless nights of Monsters and Mana, security drills and reconnaissance missions.

They do, after months and months of living in each other’s pockets, after nearly losing each other more than once, after Hunk literally keeps them all from drifting apart.

“We’re a family, you guys,” he tells them afterwards, when they’re all in the Black Lion and apologising to him, to each other, when he’s making rice balls for dinner for them. “You would have done the same.”

“Family,” Allura repeats softly, and she still looks shaken from their ordeal.

“If we’re a family, then you’re the heart of us, Hunk,” Shiro says.

Hunk doesn’t know about that part, but he doesn’t tell them he thinks so, and they all eat dinner on Black—courtesy of him and Romelle—before returning to their own Lions.

They _are_ a family, though.

There’s Allura, their pretty princess with her Rapunzel-hair and eyes that remind Hunk of the sea back in Samoa. She’s their leader, without a doubt. And then there’s Shiro, who kinda scared Hunk at the start because of his ridiculously impressive resumé as Garrison Golden Child, and the fact that he was a walking six-foot-four Adonis.

He knows better now, but Shiro is their leader too. He’s the responsible, level-headed one, but now and again, he’ll bowl them all over with a sarcastic remark.

Back at the Garrison, Hunk always remembered Keith as the rival Lance couldn’t shut up about during their first two years, and then he’d dropped out after news of the Kerberos mission failure. Hunk hadn’t known Shiro then, but he knew how close those two had been; sometimes he would see them returning from their hoverbike rides, covered in dust. It had been the only time Hunk saw Keith smile.

Keith is the lone wolf of them, but he’s strong, too; he stepped up to be their leader when they needed him, and Hunk knows Keith is a big softie on the inside. He’s just afraid of showing that side to anyone as readily as he does to Shiro.

Lance is the one in their family who sets the mood, who always cracks jokes and tries his horrible flirting techniques on anyone and everyone.

Coran’s like the quirky uncle that no one really knows what’s going on with him, but they all love regardless.

Romelle is sweet too, with her pointy ears and her weird knack for picking up skills quickly, like how the other day when she helped Hunk make dinner.

And then there’s Pidge.

Pidge, with her gigantic brain and connect-the-dots freckles and huge glasses that she always asks Hunk to clean, because she keeps getting her greasy fingers on the lenses.

Pidge, who Hunk still can’t believe _double-modulates,_ who hates sunlight and peanuts and argues with him on almost everything.

Hunk doesn’t know if he’s the heart of Voltron, but he does know that they’re leaders and fighters and diplomats, and even if they do bicker with each other every day, they have a lot of love to give.

 _Don’t forget your family,_ his mom told him, but Hunk hadn’t known that he’d find one out here in space too.

— H —

The third time Hunk returns home, he doesn’t see his any of his _aiga._ And that really hurts, because he sees the rest of his found family reuniting: he sees Lance’s niece and nephew running to him, sees Pidge fling herself into her mother’s arms. Even Keith and Shiro are welcomed by Iverson.

There’s no one to welcome Hunk home.

He doesn’t even know if his grandma is still alive.

“I’m sorry about your family, Hunk,” Allura says, and Hunk suddenly feels like the most selfish person, because he might not be with his family, sure, but Allura’s _died,_ and she had to wake up to that news.

“I’m sorry about your family too,” he tells her.

It’s just the two of them, sitting outside. Above them, the barrier hums. Hunk dreads to think of how much energy a shield like that needs to maintain itself, especially considering how primitive Earth’s technology is compared to the Alteans or Olkari.

“My family are long gone,” Allura says, dragging a fingernail through the dust, and the image is kind of jarring—their picture-perfect Princess getting dirt on her hands for no other reason than boredom. “But yours are still here on this planet.”

Hunk swallows. Originally he thought about disappearing into the kitchen to make something, but the only thing he could think of was banana chips, and the Garrison was on rations so fresh fruit was difficult to find in the first place. And then he kept thinking of his grandma making them for him for school, which made him want to cry, so he came outside instead and found Allura.

She’s staring up at the barrier too, the orange glow looking out of place on her. Hunk’s always liked the brown of her skin, how it’s dark like his. Lance is tanned too but he’s still nowhere near Hunk like Allura is. She could fit in with his family, he thinks. Auntie Lani and Auntie Ophie always wanted more sisters. His dad always wanted a daughter.

“I’m still sorry,” he says.

Allura’s eyes are always too shiny these days. They were shiny when he first met her, when she spent all her time in that juniberry field with her father, but for a while, when Lotor had been around, they hadn’t been.

“I have you all, at least,” she says, and it sounds _super_ diplomatic and like something straight out of a movie with a perfect script to tug on heartstrings.

“Yes,” Hunk agrees, wishing he'd had the strength to stay inside and make something for them to eat. His mom and aunties always said that times like this were always best spent with comfort food. “You definitely have us. We’re your family too, now.”

Allura doesn’t say anything else, just smiles at him with a wobbly mouth and too shiny eyes.

— H —

Hunk knows they all said things they didn’t mean to when they were adrift in space without the Lions, but some were true, too. Because what started out as an imaginary scenario of returning to Earth and being welcomed with a parade ended up taking over Hunk’s fantasies until he was so sure it would be reality.

Instead, here he is, fossicking for food in a kitchen that has even less ingredients than the Castle of Lions started out with. Yesterday, the toaster threw a hissy fit, and Hunk tried to fix the damned thing only to get oil in his eyeball as payment. And then Keith walked by and told Hunk he was the bravest one of them all, which made Hunk feel so much better and they embarked on a rescue trip for his family.

But they couldn’t get them out.

Hunk cried a lot earlier. Now he just wants to stay busy.

“How are you feeling?” Keith asks him as he works.

Fine, really, objectively speaking; his lungs are still working and his heart is still kicking, he just needs his hands to stay busy because otherwise he’s going to go crazy. Already he can feel the panic clawing at the base of his chest.

Okay, so maybe not _fine,_ per se.

“Not so good,” he manages.

Keith’s eyes are on his datapad, waiting for an update. Earlier the doctors put Shiro under anaesthetic to attach the new prosthetic arm Pidge’s dad had been working on, and now all that’s left is for all of them is to wait for Shiro to wake up. Hunk figured waking up to cookies would be a nice thing.

And Keith, of course, but then that’s a given.

Keith is the one whose arms Shiro fell into after Allura put his soul back into the clone body; Keith is the one who stayed by Shiro’s side when the rest of them were gallivanting around for faunatonium. If anything, Hunk expected Keith to stay in the observation room of the theatre.

“What about you?” Hunk asks. “Feeling okay?”

Keith drums his fingers on his lips, still staring at the datapad. It makes Hunk wonder if they’ve ever talked about feelings with each other; it’s obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes just how in love they are. Even Romelle asked Hunk the first time she helped with breakfast if Shiro and Keith were lovers, and she’d only just met Shiro.

“Nervous,” Keith says quietly.

“Me too, buddy,” Hunk sighs. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

Keith looks at the spoonful of cookie dough Hunk is holding out to him. “What do I do?”

Hunk’s mouth falls open. “Nineteen—no, _twenty-one,_ considering the time dilation and your quantum abyss side-quest—years in this universe and you’ve never made cookies?”

Keith screws his nose up at Hunk. “Just tell me.”

“Twenty-one years,” Hunk mouths as he shows Keith how to roll the dough into a ball and place it on the baking parchment.

Keith is a quick study, like he is in everything, and at the end of it they have three trays with two neat lines.

Hunk’s dad used to be the one who would wander in afterwards to lick the bowl while Hunk’s mom let him claim the spoon. When the batches were done, they’d sit in the afternoon sun, Hunk perched on his mom’s lap, and drink tea and eat cookies.

The kitchen smells like those afternoons and Hunk doesn’t mean to but he begins to cry again as they’re washing up. Keith pauses, looking completely lost, and who can blame him? Hunk knows Keith’s opinion of his people skills are beyond abysmal.

“It’ll be okay, Hunk,” Keith tells him, and Hunk is surprised when Keith shuffles closer and holds him of his own accord. “Promise.”

Hunk buries his sniffles into Keith’s shoulder.

— H —

The first thing Hunk does when he wakes up is vomit.

Which, in retrospect, isn’t a surprise. His motion sickness is renowned throughout his family. One time he went on holiday with his Uncle Rangi and Uncle Afu and turned a three-hour car trip into a four-hour one because of how often they had to pull over.

The second thing he does is cry, because when his stomach has stopped its valiant ascent up his oesophagus, he realises it’s his grandma who brushes his hair from his eyes and his mom who rubs circles onto his back and his dad who kisses his head.

He just cries and cries and cries.

“My son, my son,” his dad keeps saying, and his mom is petting his head and wiping his face, and his grandma is talking too quickly in Samoan for Hunk’s stupidly out-of-practice self to keep up with.

“I'm sorry,” he gasps. “I'm so sorry I didn’t come home sooner.”

“No,” his dad says, and Hunk has never seen him cry before, not like this. “You’re here now.”

His mom kisses his cheeks and Hunk wraps his arms around all three of them, feeling like he’s being broken and remade all at once.

The third thing Hunk does is get accosted by the rest of his family as they squeeze into every corner for his hospital room. Hunk kisses all of them, counting. He realises it’s impossible for _everyone_ to be there but most of the first outer circle is there: Auntie Ophie and her partner Eli, Auntie Tula and Auntie Rita and Uncle Tony and Auntie Caroline. Moana is six now, and Leilani is nearly thirteen. Sione got married and even Lika is here.

“The others?” Hunk says anyway.

“We’re still working on it,” his dad says.

They don’t broach the subject again.

The fourth thing Hunk does is eat.

Of course it is.

The kitchen staff member brought around a tray earlier but it sits to the side, forgotten, as his grandma and aunties all push containers at him. Hunk is pretty sure they are supposed to report any food brought into the infirmary but he takes one look at the wrapped taro leaves and the smell of _home_ fills his nostrils.

It kickstarts a wave of nostalgia in him, a tide of memories crashing onto the sandbank of his mind, and Hunk just thinks, _fuck it._

The fifth thing Hunk does is introduce them to his new _aiga._ There’s Allura and Coran, who Hunk’s grandma hugs, and Lance, who Tui and Leilani latch onto instantly. Keith is the last of them to wake up, nearly two weeks down the track, so Hunk introduces his parents to Shiro while they wait.

“You should tell him,” Hunk says bluntly, after Shiro has charmed his way around Hunk’s parents. “When he wakes up.”

Shiro looks at Hunk, confused. “Tell him what?”

“That you love him,” Hunk says, because he got thoroughly embarrassed hearing Shiro laud Hunk during their time in space, and now it’s Shiro’s turn. Plus it’s fair, you know? They both deserve happiness.

Shiro is gasping at him like a fish out of water, and Hunk never thought he’d consider Shiro—walking Adonis—to ever be ugly, but it’s definitely not the most attractive look. “I… I don’t… ”

Hunk rolls his eyes. “Look, I know we’ve all got each other, and we’re a family too. But don’t tell me this is the time where you tell me the way you’re looking at Keith right now is as a brother.”

Shiro’s eyes avert from Keith’s face guiltily, caught out. “I’m not.”

Hunk puts his hand on Shiro’s shoulder as he passes and squeezes, the way his grandpa used to do to him. “I know.”

— H —

Pidge knocks on his door one night, when they’re in their new rooms at the Garrison instead of the infirmary, when the world is still scarred from the remnants of Sendak’s Fires of Purification fleet.

Hunk is awake anyway, squinting at the exercise book his grandma scribbled recipes in for him. She never likes using datapads.

“Hey,” Pidge says as she rubs her eyes, and even in the dim blue light, Hunk can see the grease stains on her jumper. “I couldn’t sleep. Can I invade your room for a bit?”

Hunk snorts. “Of course you can.”

Pidge grins and skips across the room, over the other cookbooks his family threw at him on their way out the door the other day. Hunk is already pulling up the covers for her to slip under and Pidge takes full advantage of his generosity, shoving him over to the wall as she burrows in.

“You’re _freezing,”_ Hunk complains and Pidge retaliates by planting her cold feet more fully on his calves.

“Sucker,” she snickers, before looking at the book in his hand. A yawn gets buried in the sleeve of what he now recognises as _his_ old rugby jumper, and then she asks, “What’re you reading?”

“Just some recipes from my grandma,” he says, flipping the page. He’s too tired to absorb any of it, but it doesn’t matter. “Trying to figure out which ones to try next.”

Another yawn, and then Pidge takes her glasses off to clean them. “I liked the fritter ball things you made the other day.”

“They were pretty popular, huh?” Hunk says.

“Yeah, they reminded me of the Castle.” Pidge fiddles with the blankets, and her feet are still so cold. She could be an ice giant from one of those old comics that are her favourite ones to read in lab. “Didn’t think I’d miss the Castle but here we are.”

“Neither.” Hunk wishes he could catch her eye, but then she isn’t one for that kind of contact during this kind of a talk. Pidge is a bit prickly like Keith, hates being seen to be weak.

“Is it bad,” Pidge says, _so quietly_ that Hunk wonders if she doesn’t want him to hear at all, if she’s just saying it out loud so it doesn’t bounce around in her head anymore, “that I want to go back so much?”

“To the war?”

“Maybe?” Pidge curls down far enough that the blanket covers her nose. “Maybe the space thing. Being out there, fighting. I got so used to it, I don’t know who I am without it anymore.”

Hunk puts his book down.

Pidge keeps going. “It’s cool, being home, and I _really_ love my family, I’m just… ”

“In limbo?” Hunk offers, holding the saying out for her to take if she wishes, thinking of his mom all those months ago telling him that he didn’t have to choose, that he could have one without sacrificing the other.

At the time Hunk hadn’t agreed.

It’s different now.

“Kind of,” Pidge says, and she’s so _bony_ when she pushes closer to him. Hunk should feed her more. Pidge's cheeks aren't so squishy anymore, and that's Hunk's favourite thing to do. “I don’t know what I want.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I want to be here at home with my family because it’s safe and peaceful but I want to be up there with you guys too.”

“You can,” Hunk says. “It doesn’t always have to be black and white.”

But Pidge is a mathematician and she likes numbers and little boxes and her ravioli in perfect squares. She disagrees (like, when would she _ever_ agree with Hunk so _easily),_ and Hunk lets her.

Sometimes they have to arrive to these things on their own.

Pidge nods sleepily as Hunk returns to his exercise book, before she appears to give up on her curiosity (because she always likes to know _everything)_ and tucks her head against Hunk’s shoulder.

“Wake me up in half an hour,” she demands.

Which, Hunk tries, except Pidge usually sleeps like the dead and tonight is no different. After the fifth time of trying to shake her awake (gently, he’s not a monster, okay) Hunk decides it’s a lost cause and turns the bed light off instead.

The snoring doesn’t bother him anyway. He snores louder.

— H —

When Hunk turns nineteen, feeling like he’s really turning ninety after _everything,_ he gets his first _tatau._ He goes home to the islands for it, back to the tattoo master that gave his dad and uncles their _pe’a._

Hunk remembers being a child and watching his dad on the floor as the tattoo master worked, pressing ink into the skin of his thigh. It took two assistants and two weeks to finish the piece, and a lot of showers and coconut oil, but after the skin was healed over and the redness gone, Hunk’s dad let him touch the lines.

“These are fala,” his dad told him as he traced them. “Our ancestors used to worship on these.”

Hunk kept going, to the triangles that curved up to his dad’s hips on each side.

“Spearheads,” his dad explained. “Armor. As men, we protect our _aiga._ One day you will get your own _pe’a_ , Hunk, and then it will be your responsibility to preserve our _fa’asinomaga.”_

Hunk curled more fully into his dad’s lap, knowing he would not be pushed away like he would with Uncle Fin. “What if it hurts too much?”

Hunk’s dad was the bravest man he knew, but he had groaned in pain almost the entire time. “You will be brave enough, Hunk. You have your mom’s heart. And your dad’s good looks, of course—hey!”

Hunk’s mom reached out and pinched his dad’s cheek. “You’re a fool.”

“And you married me,” he simpered. “So who’s the fool?”

 _Me,_ Hunk thinks as he sits down on the mat and strips his shirt off. _I’m the fool._

He _hates_ needles, and this is going to hurt twenty thousand times more. The apprentice working with Master Fa’i—Seti—winks at him, like he knows exactly what thoughts are going through Hunk’s mind.

“You’ll be fine,” he tells Hunk, which Hunk objectively knows is meant to calm him, except it does the opposite and Hunk’s heart climbs a little further up his windpipe. “Fa’i knows what he’s doing.”

Hunk nods, turning his palm up to the ceiling of their _faleo’o._ They had a talk earlier about what Hunk was after in terms of patterns, and where he wanted it. Hunk chose his right arm, mentioned having the ocean and something of a turtle, and was leaving the rest up to Fa’i.

“You bet,” Fa’i chortles, crossing his legs underneath him and poking Hunk’s shoulder. “Eh, try to relax. Like Seti said, you’ll be fine. I know you will.”

Hunk takes a deep breath. Next week they'll be heading back out into space again, all of his _aiga:_ Pidge and Lance and Allura and Keith and Shiro, and then the rest of the Atlas crew too. Hunk's family are staying, of course, so he wants to take a piece of them with him. Something to look at when the nights are long and the distance stretches on forever, when he's struggling to remember.

“Ah, of course you will be fine," Fa’i crows, "You are Samoan!" And he uses the exact same words that Grandma Siulia told Hunk all those months earlier: “It's impossible for you to forget the _fa'a Samoa_.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. _aiga:_ family, home
> 
> 2\. Hunk's tattoo: shoulders and arm reflect strength, bravery, creativity; the ocean symbolises change, continuity, and the turtle can symbolise protection, longevity and health
> 
> this fic is a huge piece of me and I will forever be grateful for Hunk being Polynesian rep; to my Voltron _whanau_ , thank you for all the support, _arohanui_ and I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it.
> 
> bug me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sepiacigarettes)!


End file.
